I truly despise Cookie and GDPR banners that have become the norm on websites thanks to the EU’s cookie and privacy laws. For years now I have resisted adding a cookie banner to this website or any of my other websites. My stance has been that the likelihood anyone would ever complain to the EU about any of my web properties was next to zero. The probability must be a kin to hitting the lottery.
Then a few weeks back I logged into Google Analytics. I’m not crazy about Google Analytics, I look at it occasionally. Mostly in the periods where I am working on the site, which believe me are few and far between. Anyhow Google Analytics is now nagging that:
Set up your property to record consent from end users in the European Economic Area (EEA) to allow their personal data to be shared with Google for advertising purposes. To ensure there is no impact to your ads personalization and measurement, verify your consent settings for the Google tag and other data sources.
Google Analyitcs
I’m not expert in Googlese but it seems like they are going to force Analytics users to connect their Cookie/Consent bars to their Analytics accounts in an effort to make sure that they are legally covered from possible litigation from the EU.
So when I saw this I thought is this the end of my cookie banner free existence? But then I decided that it would not be. Rather than putting that stupid and intrusive Cookie & GDPR banner on my website I am just going to stop using Google Analytics.
As an alternative I found the WordPress friendly Independent Analytics which is self-hosted on your own website and completely GDPR compliant out of the box. So problem solved. With Google Analytics removed my website is both completely cookie free and GDPR compliant (since users can’t comment or login). I can keep it free off those horrible consent banners and not have to worry about ever having any trouble, enjoying the cookie banner free lifestyle.